Tobe Hooper's filmic output has been on a rather sharp decline since he debuted with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in 1974 (though after achieving the heights of that film, a little anticlimax is understandable). Sure, there was POLTERGEIST and THE FUNHOUSE, but for me his career was exemplified by such mediocrities like SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION and the godawful THE MANGLER. So it was with cautious optimism that I approached Hooper's 2005 release MORTUARY, hearing that it was unlike anything the man had previously done. Well, I'll give you that it's different, but that doesn't neccesarily make it good.
Really, the film isn't that far removed from horror flicks from the '70s and '80s or their paperback-original brethren (oftentimes it feels like something Rick Hautala might've penned twenty-odd years ago). In time-honored fashioned, a broken family moves into a new home to start their lives over, only to run afoul of the evil that's inhabited the place for years (I'm surprised Hooper didn't throw us a prologue from 1975, and then begin the story in PRESENT DAY). Here we have a single mom (Denise Crosby, sporting a heinous hairdo far scarier than anything in the picture), a sullen teenage son (Dan Byrd, thankfully not as grating as most horror-cinema teens), and a precocious prepubescent daughter (Stephanie Patton) who settle into a decrepit house/mortuary combo to begin their new start--though I gotta wonder, with the house's dilapidated condition and septic tank-saturated yard, how fucking brutal were their lives before if this is considered a step up?
MORTUARY is fairly slow going as it establishes its backstory and characters, and while I'm glad Hooper takes the time to flesh out his cast the clues to the story are few and far between, glossed over with pre-fab "spooky" cinematography and stock ominous score. Once things finally get rolling the pace picks up considerably, though the screenplay throws out so many elements that I was hard-pressed to figure out exactly what the movie was about. At first it seems to concern a strange black fungus that infects people and turns them into zombies (or uses them as vessels, it isn't clear), but then what is one to make of the deformed man-child that lives in the adjacent cemetery and preys on fornicating teenagers? Or the quasi-Lovecraftian aspects of the Call of Cthulhu inscription on one of the tombs, or the sacrificial well (a shoddy CGI effect that resembles a grungier version of the Sarlaac Pit) that Patton is to be offered to? Nothing forms into a cohesive whole, and the deadpan humor Hooper uses doesn't help; a typical example is when an infected Crosby serves a dinner of sludge and milk to her family, a tonally out-of-place moment that gets worse the longer it runs.
For all its flaws, I still enjoyed MORTUARY in the sense that it's the kind of movie they don't make anymore, though after the recent spate of uninspired J-horror remakes, torture porn extravaganzas, and tepid PG-13 "thrillers," it's hard not to feel a bit of relief from it.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
DAY 134--I, ZOMBIE
An interesting thing I found while doing this blog is the patterns that occur when watching movies in succession. I try to take a varied, almost random approach when selecting upcoming films--shuffling between different genres, countries of origin, and decade of release so as not to watch (and you in turn read about) the same kind of film in a row. And yet despite my efforts I find subtle, I guess you could say insidious, themes recurring from one movie to the following one. Case in point: Andrew Parkinson's 1998 effort I, ZOMBIE which eschews the dark-humor "approach" of yesterday's entry ED AND HIS DEAD MOTHER (I say approach because ED kinda eschewed the dark humor as well, even though it was allegedly a comedy) yet retains the dearth of activity at its core.
A British-based production that spanned four years to assemble, the film concerns a young botanist (Giles Aspen) who's bitten by a lesion-infested woman while out collecting samples. Afflicted with horrible seizures if he doesn't consume human flesh, Aspen ostracizes himself from his girlfriend (Ellen Softley) and holes up in a tiny apartment, documenting the progression of his condition on a tape recorder and feeding on unsuspecting victims.
Shot on film with credible performances and a strong if unassuming directorial style, I, ZOMBIE shows the potential to be an introspective, quietly powerful take on the zombie genre; Parkinson capably uses the living dead as a metaphor for loneliness and isolation, cemented with a melancholy acoustic score (also by Parkinson), but Aspen's frequent voice-overs--or scenes of him speaking into his recorder--soon grow monotonous; while it may be consistent with the diary-like style of the narrative, giving Aspen someone to interact with other than his reflection, or having Aspen convey information via expression or action, would've helped considerably in drawing the viewer in. (We do get a little of that near the end, in a marvelous bit as Aspen contemplates his decaying self in the mirror, the soundtrack itself degenerating into white noise.)
Maybe if Aspen's character didn't accept his condition so passively the film wouldn't have grown so inert. He's bitten while exploring the dilapidated structure of an old farmhouse (a scene that's steeped in creepy atmosphere), yet he makes no effort to return to find out more about the woman who attacked him. (One of his man voice-overs explains he dismissed the notion, since he's got enough problems, but I'd imagine knowing more about the person who infected you would take priority over unspecified "research.") And though he tells us repeatedly he hates having to kill for sustenance, his anguish never comes across--despite the film's subtitle, "A Chronicle of Pain," we never get an understanding of that pain, save for a few moments of Aspen writhing on the floor. His spiritual or emotional agony is never really addressed.
Parkinson also takes a relatively bloodless approach to Aspen's feeding. Though I commend him for not wallowing in senseless gore, we usually see Aspen subduing his would-be meals with an ether-soaked rag before cutting to his living room as he dines on a portion of their body, robbing the most dramatic moments of the film of their impact. (Another thing: if you hated killing innocent people, why eat just a little bit of the corpse and dump the remains? If all you need is a tiny bit to quell your craving, why not hack up the body and store them for later? Is it fresh bodies you need, or are you out of Ziploc bags?) Yet when Parkinson attempts a more visceral approach--like adding a couple of gratuitous dream sequences, or a moment in which Aspen "dismembers" himself while masturbating--they come off as cheap and calculated, out of place with the cerebral tone of the picture.
Parkinson deserves credit for attempting to do something different with zombies, revealing the human side of the living dead, but unfortunately watching someone alone in a room talking to themselves as they rot out of existence doesn't make for satisfying viewing. If there was a lesson or message being imparted, that'd be one thing, but the feeling is more that Parkinson let the heart of his narrative go unexamined.
A British-based production that spanned four years to assemble, the film concerns a young botanist (Giles Aspen) who's bitten by a lesion-infested woman while out collecting samples. Afflicted with horrible seizures if he doesn't consume human flesh, Aspen ostracizes himself from his girlfriend (Ellen Softley) and holes up in a tiny apartment, documenting the progression of his condition on a tape recorder and feeding on unsuspecting victims.
Shot on film with credible performances and a strong if unassuming directorial style, I, ZOMBIE shows the potential to be an introspective, quietly powerful take on the zombie genre; Parkinson capably uses the living dead as a metaphor for loneliness and isolation, cemented with a melancholy acoustic score (also by Parkinson), but Aspen's frequent voice-overs--or scenes of him speaking into his recorder--soon grow monotonous; while it may be consistent with the diary-like style of the narrative, giving Aspen someone to interact with other than his reflection, or having Aspen convey information via expression or action, would've helped considerably in drawing the viewer in. (We do get a little of that near the end, in a marvelous bit as Aspen contemplates his decaying self in the mirror, the soundtrack itself degenerating into white noise.)
Maybe if Aspen's character didn't accept his condition so passively the film wouldn't have grown so inert. He's bitten while exploring the dilapidated structure of an old farmhouse (a scene that's steeped in creepy atmosphere), yet he makes no effort to return to find out more about the woman who attacked him. (One of his man voice-overs explains he dismissed the notion, since he's got enough problems, but I'd imagine knowing more about the person who infected you would take priority over unspecified "research.") And though he tells us repeatedly he hates having to kill for sustenance, his anguish never comes across--despite the film's subtitle, "A Chronicle of Pain," we never get an understanding of that pain, save for a few moments of Aspen writhing on the floor. His spiritual or emotional agony is never really addressed.
Parkinson also takes a relatively bloodless approach to Aspen's feeding. Though I commend him for not wallowing in senseless gore, we usually see Aspen subduing his would-be meals with an ether-soaked rag before cutting to his living room as he dines on a portion of their body, robbing the most dramatic moments of the film of their impact. (Another thing: if you hated killing innocent people, why eat just a little bit of the corpse and dump the remains? If all you need is a tiny bit to quell your craving, why not hack up the body and store them for later? Is it fresh bodies you need, or are you out of Ziploc bags?) Yet when Parkinson attempts a more visceral approach--like adding a couple of gratuitous dream sequences, or a moment in which Aspen "dismembers" himself while masturbating--they come off as cheap and calculated, out of place with the cerebral tone of the picture.
Parkinson deserves credit for attempting to do something different with zombies, revealing the human side of the living dead, but unfortunately watching someone alone in a room talking to themselves as they rot out of existence doesn't make for satisfying viewing. If there was a lesson or message being imparted, that'd be one thing, but the feeling is more that Parkinson let the heart of his narrative go unexamined.
DAY 133--ED AND HIS DEAD MOTHER
"Quirky" is a tough thing to pull off. What one may consider offbeat and whimsical, others may find cutesy and annoying. I don't have a particularly high quirk threshold, but with an engaging story or a strong directorial presence I can be pretty forgiving; but what really bugs me is when a movie thinks that all it takes to be quirky (or witty, or edgy, or what-have-you) is a clever premise, without the bother of a screenplay, or director, or performances to develop it. In the case of the 1993 so-called black comedy ED AND HIS DEAD MOTHER, it doesn't even have the advantage of a clever premise.
Jonathan Wacks's film stars Steve Buscemi as Ed, an awkward mama's boy still mourning the death of his mother (we know because it's repeated ad nauseum in the dialogue; Wacks, nor Chuck Hughes's script, never gives Buscemi to do to actually show his grief). When a slick-talking salesman played by John Glover shows up, promising to bring Ed's mother back from the dead--for a small fee, of course--Ed agrees to fork over the cash, despite the extremely shaky claim. Sure enough, Glover fulfills his promise, bringing Ed's mother back in all of her stifling, overbearing glory, yet what Ed doesn't realize is that keeping her alive requires more than just the hidden fees Glover keeps revealing.
There's plenty that goes wrong with ED, starting with the initial set-up. Like I mentioned earlier, Buscemi doesn't seem all that affected by his mother's passing--at worst, he simply misses her, as any normal person would--so that it doesn't seem plausible that he'd go to unorthodox measures to get her back; he also never comes across as ecstatic to see her once she returns, so the film is nothing if not consistent. And for a black comedy it's appallingly sedate, with idle writing, acting, and directing that turns each scene into a non-event. One need not go to the splattery lengths of DEAD ALIVE (with similarly plumbed the zombied realms of the mother-son dynamic), but at least generate some type of energy from your newly-alive mother. It's as if Wacks had absolutely no interest in pushing his premise in any direction. Things happen with little to no reaction from the surrounding cast; the morning following her resurrection, Ed finds his mother sitting in the refrigerator as if were a Barcalounger, and no one really does anything. Are we just supposed to laugh at the wackiness? And if your mother has to consume live cockroaches as part of her condition, can't you present that in a way that gets ANY type of response, from characters or the audience? I mean, you don't have to show Mom scarfing bugs a la FEAR FACTOR, but at least convey the notion that it's pretty nasty.
The characters in ED are just as limp as its story. Buscemi plays Ed as the same oddball as he has many times since, and Glover is little more than a typical used-car salesman (at one point we follow Glover to his supervisor's office, who insists Glover bilk Ed for all he's got, against Glover's better judgment; it's an interesting wrinkle in the con man persona, but of course goes unexplored). Ned Beatty turns in a supporting role as Ed's lecherous uncle (and was probably reminiscing about the good ol' days of getting ass-raped on a Georgia riverbank), who sole purpose is to introduce the film's eye candy in the form of sexy neighbor Storm (Sam Jenkins). Storm's definitely a treat for the eyes, but her entire presence feels implausible--how many incredibly hot women do you know that pay no mind when strangers gawk at them through a telescope? There's also a last-minute twist regarding Storm's burgeoning relationship with Ed that makes it even more hard to swallow.
Throw in some needless complications like a recently-released convict (Jon Gries) that may or may not be looking for revenge on Ed's mother who brings absolutely zilch to the story, and a lame feel-good happy ending that reeks of preview-audience dissatisfaction and post-production tinkering, and you've got 90-odd minutes thrown to the wind.
Jonathan Wacks's film stars Steve Buscemi as Ed, an awkward mama's boy still mourning the death of his mother (we know because it's repeated ad nauseum in the dialogue; Wacks, nor Chuck Hughes's script, never gives Buscemi to do to actually show his grief). When a slick-talking salesman played by John Glover shows up, promising to bring Ed's mother back from the dead--for a small fee, of course--Ed agrees to fork over the cash, despite the extremely shaky claim. Sure enough, Glover fulfills his promise, bringing Ed's mother back in all of her stifling, overbearing glory, yet what Ed doesn't realize is that keeping her alive requires more than just the hidden fees Glover keeps revealing.
There's plenty that goes wrong with ED, starting with the initial set-up. Like I mentioned earlier, Buscemi doesn't seem all that affected by his mother's passing--at worst, he simply misses her, as any normal person would--so that it doesn't seem plausible that he'd go to unorthodox measures to get her back; he also never comes across as ecstatic to see her once she returns, so the film is nothing if not consistent. And for a black comedy it's appallingly sedate, with idle writing, acting, and directing that turns each scene into a non-event. One need not go to the splattery lengths of DEAD ALIVE (with similarly plumbed the zombied realms of the mother-son dynamic), but at least generate some type of energy from your newly-alive mother. It's as if Wacks had absolutely no interest in pushing his premise in any direction. Things happen with little to no reaction from the surrounding cast; the morning following her resurrection, Ed finds his mother sitting in the refrigerator as if were a Barcalounger, and no one really does anything. Are we just supposed to laugh at the wackiness? And if your mother has to consume live cockroaches as part of her condition, can't you present that in a way that gets ANY type of response, from characters or the audience? I mean, you don't have to show Mom scarfing bugs a la FEAR FACTOR, but at least convey the notion that it's pretty nasty.
The characters in ED are just as limp as its story. Buscemi plays Ed as the same oddball as he has many times since, and Glover is little more than a typical used-car salesman (at one point we follow Glover to his supervisor's office, who insists Glover bilk Ed for all he's got, against Glover's better judgment; it's an interesting wrinkle in the con man persona, but of course goes unexplored). Ned Beatty turns in a supporting role as Ed's lecherous uncle (and was probably reminiscing about the good ol' days of getting ass-raped on a Georgia riverbank), who sole purpose is to introduce the film's eye candy in the form of sexy neighbor Storm (Sam Jenkins). Storm's definitely a treat for the eyes, but her entire presence feels implausible--how many incredibly hot women do you know that pay no mind when strangers gawk at them through a telescope? There's also a last-minute twist regarding Storm's burgeoning relationship with Ed that makes it even more hard to swallow.
Throw in some needless complications like a recently-released convict (Jon Gries) that may or may not be looking for revenge on Ed's mother who brings absolutely zilch to the story, and a lame feel-good happy ending that reeks of preview-audience dissatisfaction and post-production tinkering, and you've got 90-odd minutes thrown to the wind.
Friday, March 14, 2008
DAY 132--THE WOMAN EATER
Science delves once again in places it shouldn't, this time with reanimating the dead (duh, why else would it be here?), in THE WOMAN EATER--or WOMANEATER, if you go by the onscreen title card--a 1957 programmer from director Charles Saunders. As is usually the case in mad-scientist flicks, a terrible price is paid for one's meddling but this time around it's the audience who pays it.
George Coulouris plays Dr. Moran, a stuffy British scientist who discovers the secret of restoring life to the dead whilst on a trip to Africa (or rather, a stagebound jungle set rife with stock animal footage). The secret is the extract from a malevolent tree who feeds on the bodies of sacrificial virgins, a B-monster marvel with floppy limbs and Audrey Jr-like appendages which gets precious little screen time. Moran brings the tree, along with a native manservant (Jimmy Vaughan) in tow, to his laboratory in England, where he begins his death-defying experiments. Or, more accurately, engages in multiple conversations drier than day-old toast, stretching the meager 70-minute running time to the breaking point.
Even by potboiler standards it's boring as hell, crawling along with the same urgency as a drunken snail. Laboratory scenes take a backseat to forced melodrama, and even when we are privy to Moran's experiments it's as interminable as the rest, usually a slooooow shot of liquid coursing through a network of tubes. Oooh, fascinating stuff, Doc. Moran finally puts his theory to the test, reviving the body of Joyce Gregg a whopping two minutes before the film's end; even then, all she does is putter around, sort of like my grandma did when she couldn't remember which cupboard had the cookie sheets, before dropping to the ground. Egads, the horrible toll science demands!
THE WOMAN EATER couldn't even muster a little poetic justice for Moran. The living dead doesn't punish his hubris, nor does he end up a midnight snack for the plant. Want me to give it away, and save you an hour and change of your life? Moran torches the tree--the secret wasn't for him to know, you see, that's reserved for the stereotypical savage native to understand--before Vaughan takes him out with a handy knife trick. Oh, and Vaughn then joins himself in the flames consuming the tree, because nobody hates loose plot threads more than an insensitively-drawn, one-dimensional villain.
George Coulouris plays Dr. Moran, a stuffy British scientist who discovers the secret of restoring life to the dead whilst on a trip to Africa (or rather, a stagebound jungle set rife with stock animal footage). The secret is the extract from a malevolent tree who feeds on the bodies of sacrificial virgins, a B-monster marvel with floppy limbs and Audrey Jr-like appendages which gets precious little screen time. Moran brings the tree, along with a native manservant (Jimmy Vaughan) in tow, to his laboratory in England, where he begins his death-defying experiments. Or, more accurately, engages in multiple conversations drier than day-old toast, stretching the meager 70-minute running time to the breaking point.
Even by potboiler standards it's boring as hell, crawling along with the same urgency as a drunken snail. Laboratory scenes take a backseat to forced melodrama, and even when we are privy to Moran's experiments it's as interminable as the rest, usually a slooooow shot of liquid coursing through a network of tubes. Oooh, fascinating stuff, Doc. Moran finally puts his theory to the test, reviving the body of Joyce Gregg a whopping two minutes before the film's end; even then, all she does is putter around, sort of like my grandma did when she couldn't remember which cupboard had the cookie sheets, before dropping to the ground. Egads, the horrible toll science demands!
THE WOMAN EATER couldn't even muster a little poetic justice for Moran. The living dead doesn't punish his hubris, nor does he end up a midnight snack for the plant. Want me to give it away, and save you an hour and change of your life? Moran torches the tree--the secret wasn't for him to know, you see, that's reserved for the stereotypical savage native to understand--before Vaughan takes him out with a handy knife trick. Oh, and Vaughn then joins himself in the flames consuming the tree, because nobody hates loose plot threads more than an insensitively-drawn, one-dimensional villain.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
DAY 131--KUNG FU ZOMBIE
Chop-socky zombies are the order of the day in 1983's KUNG FU ZOMBIE, a supernaturally-tinged kung fu mess from director I-Jung Hua. Loaded with broad, slapstick humor and featuring hopping ghouls similar to those in Tsui Hark's MR. VAMPIRE, the film's a prime example of the frenetic tedium that marks so many low-budget martial arts films.
The plot defies a mere synopsis (and the rapid-fire, barely legible subtitles make it impossible to follow, anyways), but from what I can gather it's about a hired killer who's struck by lightning--a delightfully bad optical--and in need of a fresh corpse for reincarnation. (And how--with his bushy eyebrows and mutton-chop sideburns he's not exactly a fearsome figure.) With the help of a shifty magician, he finds one in the body of hero Billy Chong's father, which sets up the increasingly crazy series of hand-to-hand contests.
Though the supernatural aspect lends the film some atmospheric digressions, it's still not a very interesting pic. The action is what you'd expect from cheap, grindhouse-era jung fu movies, though the climactic fight between Chong and a fire-fisted vampire (!?!) is unique and visually exciting. But the combination of kinetic editing and horrid pan-and-scan transfer feels like a subliminal sales tactic from the folks at Excedrin.
The plot defies a mere synopsis (and the rapid-fire, barely legible subtitles make it impossible to follow, anyways), but from what I can gather it's about a hired killer who's struck by lightning--a delightfully bad optical--and in need of a fresh corpse for reincarnation. (And how--with his bushy eyebrows and mutton-chop sideburns he's not exactly a fearsome figure.) With the help of a shifty magician, he finds one in the body of hero Billy Chong's father, which sets up the increasingly crazy series of hand-to-hand contests.
Though the supernatural aspect lends the film some atmospheric digressions, it's still not a very interesting pic. The action is what you'd expect from cheap, grindhouse-era jung fu movies, though the climactic fight between Chong and a fire-fisted vampire (!?!) is unique and visually exciting. But the combination of kinetic editing and horrid pan-and-scan transfer feels like a subliminal sales tactic from the folks at Excedrin.
Monday, March 10, 2008
DAY 130--THRILLER
With Michael Jackson's 1983 album THRILLER being such a runaway success, it's only fitting that the accompanying music video would be a spectacle on an equally grand scale. A thirteen-minute mini-blockbuster film directed by John Landis with Rick Baker makeup, THRILLER used the relatively new medium of the music video and became a pop culture phenomenon in its own right; it remains the only video to not only spawn a feature-length making-of documentary but its own hardcore knock-off as well (1984's DRILLER--substituting zombies gangbanging porn princess Taija Rae for its finale).
Unlike most videos, which are usually just a vehicle for the track and exists as a visual compliment, "Thriller" the song nearly gets overshadowed by Landis's presentation, taking up roughly a third of the running time (I also found it strange that Landis had Jackson perform the bulk of the lyrics in a static tracking shot) before being tied to the video's storyline in its iconic zombie-dance climax. (I know a lot of horror fans took umbrage at Landis for using the living dead in such a fashion, but I thought it was more an homage to the great fright classics rather than a mockery.) Ultimately, the video concedes to its source material, as its throughline allows some pretty big plot holes. Some of them are interesting, like Jackson in a theater watching himself in the film-within-a-film (an easy segue, or a comment on Jackson's ascension to superstardom?). But as someone who enjoys horror/zombie films, I can't help but be disappointed by the ending, in which Jackson's date is beseiged by the undead--a well-executed sequence that would've been the highlight of an ordinary film--only to be cut short by Jackson's sudden return to normalcy. (Note: the only thing more annoying than an it-was-all-a-dream ending is an it-was-all-a-dream ending in which no one was dreaming.)
Sadly, parts of THRILLER have not aged well, most notably the prologue which shows a young Jackson (before he became a version of the living dead himself) on a romantic evening with a woman. Given the recent allegations of Jackson's love life, it's easy to get a cheap laugh out of this sequence, but the real discomfort comes when he confesses, "I'm not like the other guys. I'm different." Whether or not the werecat he then transforms into stands as some type of metaphor, I have no idea.
Still, THRILLER has its moments, from a "Beat It"-inspired zombie crawling from a manhole to Vincent Price as the Rap (it's too bad he couldn't have found his way on the set). Though the scariest part for me remains that the album (easily the most-played record my third-grade year) is twenty-five years old.
(Since Jackson disabled the embedding of his videos on YouTube, I've included the Indian version which is far, far more entertaining.)
Unlike most videos, which are usually just a vehicle for the track and exists as a visual compliment, "Thriller" the song nearly gets overshadowed by Landis's presentation, taking up roughly a third of the running time (I also found it strange that Landis had Jackson perform the bulk of the lyrics in a static tracking shot) before being tied to the video's storyline in its iconic zombie-dance climax. (I know a lot of horror fans took umbrage at Landis for using the living dead in such a fashion, but I thought it was more an homage to the great fright classics rather than a mockery.) Ultimately, the video concedes to its source material, as its throughline allows some pretty big plot holes. Some of them are interesting, like Jackson in a theater watching himself in the film-within-a-film (an easy segue, or a comment on Jackson's ascension to superstardom?). But as someone who enjoys horror/zombie films, I can't help but be disappointed by the ending, in which Jackson's date is beseiged by the undead--a well-executed sequence that would've been the highlight of an ordinary film--only to be cut short by Jackson's sudden return to normalcy. (Note: the only thing more annoying than an it-was-all-a-dream ending is an it-was-all-a-dream ending in which no one was dreaming.)
Sadly, parts of THRILLER have not aged well, most notably the prologue which shows a young Jackson (before he became a version of the living dead himself) on a romantic evening with a woman. Given the recent allegations of Jackson's love life, it's easy to get a cheap laugh out of this sequence, but the real discomfort comes when he confesses, "I'm not like the other guys. I'm different." Whether or not the werecat he then transforms into stands as some type of metaphor, I have no idea.
Still, THRILLER has its moments, from a "Beat It"-inspired zombie crawling from a manhole to Vincent Price as the Rap (it's too bad he couldn't have found his way on the set). Though the scariest part for me remains that the album (easily the most-played record my third-grade year) is twenty-five years old.
(Since Jackson disabled the embedding of his videos on YouTube, I've included the Indian version which is far, far more entertaining.)
DAY 129--GHOUL SCHOOL
This 1990 schlockfest from writer/director Timothy O'Rawe was produced under the auspices of Tempe Video, the reigning king of shot-on-tape crap during the early '90s. Unlike most of Tempe's output, GHOUL SCHOOL was shot on film, giving it the feel of a forgotten Troma movie circa CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH. However, like most of Tempe's output, GHOUL SCHOOL is dreadfully dull, stuffed to the gills with flaccid humor and atrocious acting.
After an interminable opening credit sequence with slow-motion title cards (indicative of the movie's pace) that seems to have sprung from an eight-bit video game cartridge, we find ourselves at a New York high school where a pair of letter-jacketed toughs accidentally release a toxic chemical into the school's water supply, turning the swim team into flesh-hungry zombies. (As ridiculous as that sentence sounds, the film's execution thereof renders it ten times worse.) Bearing a slight resemblance to the creatures in Lamberto Bava's DEMONS--in fact, a few shots serve as threadbare recreations of that film--the zombies lurch through the halls, devouring whatever high school stereotype crosses their path; speaking of stereotypes, there's plenty to choose from, from the pair of horror-loving geeks that pose as unlikely heroes (and read SLAUGHTER HOUSE magazine during study hall) to the basketball team that sports more mullets than a Larry the Cable Guy concert. There's also a bad hair metal band practicing on campus, a group so uninspired they can't aspire to cheesiness.
With its witty banter ("Why are you such an asshole?" "Cuz I like to take after you!") that makes the comedies on the CW sound like Aaron Sorkin and loads of unconvincing gore, GHOUL SCHOOL makes for pretty dire viewing. Bland and lifeless, the film sleepwalks from one moment to another; the humans in this flick act more like the undead than the zombies themselves. Particularly jarring in an odd digressive scene in which Jackie "the Joke Man" Martling auditions for Joe Franklin, a sequence that not only has nothing to do with ANYTHING but overflows with shitty jokes to boot, and exists only to show that the filmmakers could wrangle a couple of Z-list cameos.
Barring a fleeting reference or two to THE EVIL DEAD, the zombie scenes suffer from the same inertia as the others; it's pretty sad when a zombie can repeatedly whack a dude in the groin with an ax and not even elicit the slightest sympathy from the male audience. Perhaps the paltry budget is to blame for some of its biggest blunders, such as when O'Rawe attempts a RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD-style non-ending, giving us a white-out and explosive sound effects before launching into the end credits (a roll call of shame littered with fake names, like Bart Simpson and Chester Malester, to disguise the fact that the crew consisted of ten people).
(The trailer for the recent Splatter University Edition DVD contains many scenes not found in my screening copy; either the Brentwood edition circulating on budget labels is severely cut--most likely--or the former edited in scenes from another film.)
After an interminable opening credit sequence with slow-motion title cards (indicative of the movie's pace) that seems to have sprung from an eight-bit video game cartridge, we find ourselves at a New York high school where a pair of letter-jacketed toughs accidentally release a toxic chemical into the school's water supply, turning the swim team into flesh-hungry zombies. (As ridiculous as that sentence sounds, the film's execution thereof renders it ten times worse.) Bearing a slight resemblance to the creatures in Lamberto Bava's DEMONS--in fact, a few shots serve as threadbare recreations of that film--the zombies lurch through the halls, devouring whatever high school stereotype crosses their path; speaking of stereotypes, there's plenty to choose from, from the pair of horror-loving geeks that pose as unlikely heroes (and read SLAUGHTER HOUSE magazine during study hall) to the basketball team that sports more mullets than a Larry the Cable Guy concert. There's also a bad hair metal band practicing on campus, a group so uninspired they can't aspire to cheesiness.
With its witty banter ("Why are you such an asshole?" "Cuz I like to take after you!") that makes the comedies on the CW sound like Aaron Sorkin and loads of unconvincing gore, GHOUL SCHOOL makes for pretty dire viewing. Bland and lifeless, the film sleepwalks from one moment to another; the humans in this flick act more like the undead than the zombies themselves. Particularly jarring in an odd digressive scene in which Jackie "the Joke Man" Martling auditions for Joe Franklin, a sequence that not only has nothing to do with ANYTHING but overflows with shitty jokes to boot, and exists only to show that the filmmakers could wrangle a couple of Z-list cameos.
Barring a fleeting reference or two to THE EVIL DEAD, the zombie scenes suffer from the same inertia as the others; it's pretty sad when a zombie can repeatedly whack a dude in the groin with an ax and not even elicit the slightest sympathy from the male audience. Perhaps the paltry budget is to blame for some of its biggest blunders, such as when O'Rawe attempts a RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD-style non-ending, giving us a white-out and explosive sound effects before launching into the end credits (a roll call of shame littered with fake names, like Bart Simpson and Chester Malester, to disguise the fact that the crew consisted of ten people).
(The trailer for the recent Splatter University Edition DVD contains many scenes not found in my screening copy; either the Brentwood edition circulating on budget labels is severely cut--most likely--or the former edited in scenes from another film.)
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